In the 4th century AD, a captain discovered that there was a difference between day and night in the movement of certain leaves. By the beginning of the 20th century, scientists realized that not only plants, but also animals and humans also have biological clocks. In 2017, three American scientists won the Nobel Prize for determining the working mechanism of the biological clock and isolating a gene that controls normal circadian rhythms. Recently, Israeli scholars have found for the first time that there is a link between sleep patterns and eating behavior and the gut microbiome. Let's introduce the main points now.
According to the conclusions of earlier studies, according to people's natural awakening or sleep tendencies, the academic community divides sleep patterns into different time types, early morning types, also known as lark types, habits of getting up early, and the morning vitality is the strongest. The late sleep type, also known as the night owl type, does not sleep before midnight, and the body has difficulty functioning in the morning. The proportion of these two types of people is not high, and most of the rest of the people belong to the intermediate type. In the past, scholars have found through observational studies that night owls who often stay up late increase the risk of obesity, diabetes, mental disorders, and many other chronic diseases.
In recent years, studies have found that lark-type and night owl-type people have significant differences in physiological function, cognitive level, personality structure, etc., which has prompted scientists to explore the formation mechanism of these differences in depth, and Israeli scholars will study the field of vision to the intestinal microbiome.
The scholars openly recruited 91 healthy volunteers who would send samples of their own stool and report sleep patterns and eating behaviors, and the researchers sequenced the DNA of the samples. The results showed that there were differences in the gut microbiome between lark type and night owl type people. Lark-type people, another branch of Aristipas has a higher proportion, and night owl-type people have higher levels of Lachnospira, a bacterium that can produce butyrate, which is a short-chain amino acid that is a source of signals related to sleep and wake. The findings of this study confirm that sleep patterns are closely related to the composition of the gut microbiome.
Through the questionnaire survey, it was also found that there are also great differences in eating behavior between lark type and night owl type people. Lark-type people, who consume more fruits and vegetables, mainly replenish water by drinking water, and eat less complex carbohydrates. Night owl-type people like to eat high-fat foods, consume a lot of meat, do not like to eat fruit, and will drink a lot of sugary drinks.
This study describes the changes of gut bacteria between people with different types of work and rest, and can also determine that the composition of the gut microbiome will be affected by living habits, but it is not yet possible to confirm the causal relationship between sleep patterns, eating behaviors, and gut microbial composition. Is it the first change in the composition of the gut microbiome, prompting people to change their work and rest habits, so as to eat more unhealthy foods? Or is it the other way around, because you can't sleep on time, you eat more unhealthy foods, leading to changes in the composition of the gut microbiome? Believe in scientists, and soon they will bring us the final answer.
Notably, scientists have found that gut microbes are also regulated by the biological clock. Israeli scholars have done a study to analyze the excrement samples of mice with a 24-hour daily life rule, taking a sample every 6 hours, and found that 60% of the bacteria in the sample and mutual interference will fluctuate between day and night, when the light is dark, bacterial activity, digestion of nutrients, repair OF DNA, and continue to grow. When the light is strong, the microorganisms become housekeepers and begin to be busy detoxifying, growing flagella and helping the microorganisms run. Scientists divide the biological clock into a central clock and a peripheral clock, which regulates sleep and wakefulness, as well as food intake rhythms and energy expenditures, controlling hormone secretion. Peripheral clocks, such as gut microbial activity, regulate glucose absorption, muscle, fat, liver, etc. around the clock regulate insulin sensitivity, and the clock around the pancreas regulates insulin secretion. If the work and rest are disordered and the circadian rhythm system is not synchronized, it will lead to the occurrence of a variety of metabolic diseases. Our ancestors, for thousands of years, used to farming life, working at sunrise, no electricity at night, never staying up late, is a typical industrious lark type. With the genes left by the ancestors, but to be a night owl, every day to compete with their own biological clock, will inevitably pay the price of health.
Whoever loves, pass on health to whom.